Vol 88 Issue 15

Congregation Activities The men of the Edgerton, MNPRC invited all the men of the area churches to a combined men’s society meeting on March 27. The meeting began with a Bible study taken from the book of Jude, fol­lowed after recess by a discussion on the February 15, 2012 Stan­dard Bearer article by Mr. Brian Van Engen on “Religion and Dis­crimination in Employment.” The members of the George­town PRC in Hudsonville, MI enjoyed their annual Church Con­ference on Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24. This year it was held at the Holland Rescue Mis­sion in nearby Holland, MI, under...

Previous article in this series: April 1, 2012, p. 295. A self-propagating church, as we noted last time, is one that is faithful to the great commission. She is mission minded. She is busy in the work of spreading the precious truths of the gospel in her own land and to her own countrymen. Last time we saw that certain pitfalls must be avoid­ed, especially as regards the use of foreign funds. We now turn to the positive aspects of working toward the goal of establishing such churches. The first step in establishing a self-propagating church is to teach the...

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2012, p. 279. In our last article we began treating the history of the office of elder by examining its presence in the nation of Israel. Particularly we noted what the Old Testament teaches regarding the authority, quali­fications, and work of elders. In this article we treat the period from Israel’s captiv­ity through Jesus’ day, intending to treat the developments in the office after the time of Pentecost in our next article. The Office Continues Two historical events that occasioned development in the office of elder were the Babylonian captivity and the return...

Reprinted from When Thou Sittest in Thine House, by Abraham Kuyper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1929. Used by permission of Eerdmans Publishing Co. Rest in God God’s consolations are not written for the child of fortune. He who sees the little stream of his life flow quietly, calmly along from one year’s end to the other might not for this reason put God’s Word aside; but in that Word he does not find his world, his life, the reflection of the condition of his heart. A single part from the Sermon on the Mount, and from what...

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2012, p. 276. An Earthly Conception of the Kingdom Closely related to postmillennialism’s error of conceiving the victory of the Messianic kingdom as an earthly victory, within history, is its erroneous con­ception of the very nature of the kingdom of Christ. Postmillennialism views the Messianic kingdom as an earthly reign of Jesus Christ. Granted, the postmillen­nial theologians in the Reformed tradition acknowledge the spiritual power that must establish the kingdom of Christ and bring it to victory during the millennium. Especially the Puritans, the Reformed theologians who were influenced by the Puritans, and...

So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun:. . . Ecclesiastes 4:1a. Oppression of a man by his neighbor is a vast subject with the many different forms of evil done under the sun. Solomon has pointed out that, in the place of judgment, evil is found among men. This works the oppression of the neighbor. He calls to mind all the oppression that he sees in its vari­ous forms, but rather than going into detail, he distills it down to one basic reality when he looks at it. There is the one who is...

When I did the unusual recently and paid for my gas inside the ser­vice station instead of at the pump, the young lady who took my money was reading a book entitled Heaven is for Real. I took the opportunity to ask her what she thought about the book. Heaven is for Real is one of the recent New York Times best-sellers. The part-time pastor who wrote the book, and Thomas Nel­son the publisher, have made a great deal of money on the story. In 2011 it broke all of Nelson’s sales records with 3.4 million copies in print. The...

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there re­memberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be rec­onciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matthew 5:23-24 True religion is more than just external cer­emonies and observances. True religion is a matter of the heart. The heart-centered character of true religion is evident with something like the sixth commandment, which Jesus addresses in His sermon on the mount just prior to the words we consider. Those who truly love God and their neighbor...